All four of these species are used as ornamentals and are now quite
widepsread outside their natural or pre-modern historical range.

Other rarely collected species of Colocasia are less well-known
taxonomically, their geographical ranges cannot be ascertained from
one or just a few collection records each. These species are less
likely to be found in trade (C. gracilis, C. mannii, C. virosa, and
others that have been reported in recent years).

C. fallax is a tough, cold tolerant species with stolons (i.e it
seems to be atropical mountain species).

C. gigantea ranges in cultivation from tropics to warm temperate
areas, and will regrow after frost or snow damage (in Japan).

C. esculenta ranges in cultivation from tropics to cool temperate
areas, and will regrow after frost or snow damage (to 41 degrees N.in
Japan). Wild forms in the lowland tropics and subtropics are all
stoloniferous and show considerable phenotypic diversity in mainland
SE Asia - in coloration, spathe morphology etc.).

Wild forms at higher altitudes (above 1000 m) in the tropics are not
well known but do exist, and some bear cormels rather than stolons.

The historically recognised varieties (e.g.C. e. var. aquatilis and
var. antiquorum) may simply represent fragments from a continuous
range of morphological variation among wild forms in diverse habitats
over a huge geographical range in Asia and the western Pacific.

It is difficult for anyone to actually cover all the ground that
needs to be covered, to comprehend variation in very widespread
species. Give us another hundred years or so (or 100 students and
funds for 1 year).

I'm fed up with most of the botanists. I'm trying to sell
my plants under correct names, but... There are 2-4 names
for plants. Now please decide wich one is correct!

This is because in the early days of Linnaean nomenclature,
many species were known only from preserved or cultivated
specimens. There was no way of knowing which of these
specimens could have interbred, nor of how much variation
the offspring would show, so each different variant had a
separate name. In some cases, different specimens of a
single species were put in three or four different genera --
just try sorting out the synonymy of, for example, the
California fan palm, Washintonia filifera.

Not sure whether C. fallax is a good species or not, but
since it, too, is here mixed up with C. esculenta, it is
suspect.
I cannot speak of your other questions.
Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large
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